Waste & Recycling Firm Partners with Biotech Company Genarex : Meridian Waste Solutions Deal to Produce Bioplastics from Corn & Ethanol Byproducts
Atlanta, Georgia based Meridian Waste Solutions, Inc. (NASDAQ: MRDN) has entered a strategic partnership with biotech firm, Genarex FD LLC, to develop a broader range of agricultural waste based bioadditives for the plastics market.
Genarex extracts otherwise low-value materials from corn ethanol byproducts and uses these materials as bioadditives in plastics.
According to Meridian, the US corn ethanol industry produces about 50 million tons of a low-value byproduct referred to as distillers dried grains, or DDGS. Genarex’s technology removes a portion of the DDGS and converts it into a polymerised material branded as Bylox. This material is claimed to have a high value as a functional filler in numerous plastic formulations.
Attis Innovations, a wholly owned subsidiary of Meridian Waste Solutions Inc., recovers lignin from the byproduct stream of biomass processing industries, such as pulp and paper and cellulosic ethanol. The recovered lignin is said to be unique in that it is a melt flowing biomaterial that is low cost and acts as a highly functional polymerized biofiller in applications such as plastics, adhesives and transportation fuels.
Meridian said that the combination of the two offerings adds value to a vast array of plastics conversion technologies, including blown and cast films, injection molding, profile and sheet extrusion, thermoforming, and rotational molding. Bioplastics including PLA, PBAT, PBS, and traditional plastics including PE, PP, PVC, and PS are just a few of the resin systems which can be extended or improved with the combined portfolio of products.
The products offered by both companies are entirely biobased and offer resin extension at cost parity or cost savings to existing fossil fuel-derived feedstocks.
“Partnering with Genarex allows us to tap into its seven-year history of process and product development and pre-existing commercial scale pilot capabilities to accelerate the commercialization of our lignin products,” explained Jeff Cosman, Meridian’s Chief Executive Officer.
“We see the established infrastructure and coproduct volumes of the corn ethanol industry as a strategic target for our developing ecosystem of value-added biorefining technologies,” he concluded.
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